McNeil's Match

by Gwynne Forster

  The seriousness of his facial expression disconcerted her, and she got up from the table, went to him and put an arm around his shoulder. “Forgive me if I got carried away. I didn’t intend to demean the relationship between us with what seemed like a joke. I’m so sorry.” She hugged him because she needed to feel him close to her.

  “I was surprised, but it was just a bump in the road. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Does that mean you forgive me?” she insisted.

  “Of course. But in the future, remember that it’s just as binding if you say it as it would be if I said it. All right?”

  “Thanks.” She finished the meal, relishing every bite, and she measured each word carefully. She didn’t remember having been loose with words, but after liberating herself from Willard Marsh, she seemed to have relaxed her tongue as well as her guard. Four months after a divorce, she was slowly but definitely falling in love with a man she had known less than one month.

  He cleaned the kitchen and brought coffee to the living room. “I’m going to leave in a few minutes, but before I go, I want to tell you something. This has been one of the most pleasant days of my life. I don’t remember enjoying anyone’s company as much as I’ve enjoyed yours. I’ve never believed in fate, but get this—I don’t usually answer afternoon service calls. Along with one of my men, I take calls between seven and twelve. Bill, whom you met, and another man take afternoon calls. For some reason, I said to Bill, ‘Finish your lunch. I’ll take it.’ Ordinarily he’d have finished his lunch, rested for the remainder of his lunch hour and then gone on the call. If this is fate or what God wants, as my mother would say, I’m willing to go along with his program. What about you?”

  “Me? I suppose he knows what he’s doing.”

  “Woman, you have evasiveness down to a fine art. I repeat. What about you?”

  “When you kissed me senseless last night, you didn’t leave me with a bag of options.”

  “Good. I was hoping I left you with none. Is the answer to my question yes or no?”

  “Yes.”

  He stood. “Walk me to the door?”

  “Not unless you promise to behave better than you did last night.”

  Merriment danced in his warm brown eyes, eyes that darkened to a mahogany when passion gripped him. “I promise.”

  With the wall supporting his back, he gripped her hips with one hand, held the back of her head with the other one, lifted her to fit him and searched the seams of her lips with his tongue. Frantic for the taste of him, she parted her lips and took him in. Nothing had prepared her for the force of his passion, as he locked her to his body and, with the dance of his tongue, simulated the act of love. His pectorals pressed against her nipples, and she knew he could feel it, that it heated him the same way that it made fire spiral through her body. The blood raced to her loins, and she raised her knees, pressed them beside him against the wall and felt him rise hard and powerfully against her center. He attempted to move her away from him, but she refused to give place. She wanted him inside of her, and she didn’t care if he knew it. Sucking the sweet ambrosia from his swirling tongue, she moved against him, her hips undulating in a wild and unrestrained rhythm, demanding, until he gripped her body and set her from him. He stared down at her with eyes of liquid fire, and sensation rioted throughout her body.

  Frustrated, she poked him in the chest with her fist, and still he stared, the silence so pregnant with tension that it spoke with a voice of its own.

  “Oh Lord,” she moaned, wrapped her arms around him and rested her head on his chest. “Go now, or stay. I can’t handle any more of this.”

  His arms eased around her. “When we make love, it will be very special. I’ll see you around three tomorrow. Good night, love.”

  * * *

  Hours later, Lynne twisted, kicked and turned until the bedding bound her as wrappings bind a mummy. She rolled over and over until she could extricate herself and sit on the side of the bed. She switched on the lamp beside her bed, stared at the scene around her and thought how strange it appeared. The moon shone brightly from beyond her window, and she thought of the cold, loveless nights she’d lived for six long years of her life. What would she find if she linked her life with Sloan McNeil’s? Would it be her second gargantuan error?

  It wasn’t amusing, nothing was right then, but nonetheless, she began to laugh at herself. Sloan McNeil hadn’t said a word about linking himself to her, except in bed, and making love didn’t imply commitment. Commitment or not, a fire burned inside of her, and it burned for him, wild and almost out of control. If he was half the man he seemed to be and purported himself to be, she meant to have him at least once. She deserved to know her feminine self and her potential as a woman, and Sloan McNeil would help her realize it. She crawled back into bed, pulled the covers up to her neck and went to sleep.

  At seven the next morning, she locked her front door, ran down Corpus Christi Lane and headed for the bikers’ trail. After jogging to the end and back, she sat beside a pond about half a mile from her house and watched a frog jump from water lily to water lily, snapping at flies and other bugs. If only she could get in a few laps in an Olympic-size pool. Buying and furnishing a house was more than she should tackle at the moment, she knew, because she needed to focus on sharpening her tennis game, but she wanted a swimming pool. She went home and telephoned her brother.

  “This is Lynne,” she said when Brad answered. “How are you? I’m thinking of buying this house, and I need some advice. Do you know anyone in San Antonio who can be trusted to give me an honest appraisal?”

  “Sure. What’s up? Don’t tell me your mechanic is urging you to buy a house.”

  “For goodness’ sake, Bradford—” he knew she only called him that when he annoyed her “—the man has his own house. I haven’t seen it, but I know he has one.”

  “Damned if you’re not hooked on that guy. Lynne, listen to me. It won’t do your career one bit of good to be tied to a grease monkey. I—”

  She interrupted him. “Brad, how could you? You know nothing about him. He’s as well educated as you are, and he carries himself as well as you do. Put the two of you in a room together and no one would be able to guess which of you was the automobile mechanic.”

  “Well, if he’s such a hotshot, ask him to work in his office and let his employees do the greasy work. I don’t want my sister hanging out with a beer-drinking mechanic.”

  “Really? When we had dinner at Michael’s, the best restaurant anywhere near here, he ordered Châteauneuf-du-Pape with the meal.”

  “I didn’t know you were so easily impressed. Tell him to take a desk job.”

  “What about someone to appraise this house?”

  “Oh, yes. Breckenridge and Breckenridge, and tell them I sent you. Now, you—”

  “I’m hanging up, Brad, before you make me really mad. Bye and thanks.”

  If only Brad would get off her case about Sloan. She loved her brother, and she wanted him at least to be friendly toward the man she cared for. Anyone would think that, after her six-year trial with Willard Marsh, her brother would be glad if she found a gentle, caring man. “Oh well, I’ll worry about that some other time.”

  She ate a hearty breakfast of oatmeal, melon, toast, bacon and coffee, showered and dressed in her gym suit in preparation for her “battle” with Max, who arrived promptly at ten-thirty.

  “I hope you’ve sent lover boy packing,” he said, in place of good morning. “You tell him that I do not permit interference between me and my clients. Where my clients are concerned, I am the boss.” He pointed to his chest. “Me.”

  “You tell him that the first chance you get. I’m not going to tell him any such thing. Let’s get started.”

  He put her through some difficult paces, as she’d known he would. “I’m tired,” she told him at noon. �
��Let’s take an hour for lunch and rest. I can make you a ham sandwich or I’ll meet you here at about one-fifteen.”

  He glared at her, but she knew he remembered Sloan’s words: “You work for her.” I should have told him that myself, and from now on, whether it’s trainer or coach, I am the boss.

  “I’ll meet you here at one-fifteen, and don’t eat too much. Strenuous exercise is not good on a full stomach.” She let him have the last word.

  He’d saved the stretches for the last, and it occurred to her that he did that to test her, because for her, it was the most demanding. When, at last, she walked over to the bench and put on her sweatshirt, he yelled, “You got twenty more minutes.”

  “You sent me to the hospital emergency room Friday,” she told him, “but today, I’m using my common sense. I’m tired, and I’ll see you at ten-thirty tomorrow morning.”

  Her head snapped around at the sound of applause. “Good going,” Sloan said. “You want to rest a few minutes? I’ve got something to show you.” As if Max wasn’t there, he brushed her lips with his and then hunkered before her. “How do you feel?”

  “Fine, considering how little sleep I got. Most of the night, you fooled around in my head. What you did was criminal.”

  “At least I only fooled around in your head.”

  She looked at a point past his shoulder. “I’m not going there. What do you want to show me?”

  He straightened up and grasped her hand. “Come. It’s in the truck.”

  She looked at his pristine white trousers, white shoes and white short-sleeved shirt. “You drove the truck?”

  He nodded, seemingly overflowing with joy. “I had to. You’ll see.”

  As they walked from the tennis court across the lawn to the side of the house that had a walkway leading to the street, he dropped her hand and slung his arm loosely around her waist. She didn’t object, because it seemed to belong there.

  “You didn’t even speak to Max.”

  “I would have if I hadn’t focused on you. Anyhow, I’m still a little vexed with him.”

  Her lower lip dropped when her gaze caught the truck and the big red doll’s house, or what seemed like one, that loomed in the back of it. “What’s this?”

  He went around the truck and came back to her carrying a four-month-old German shepherd. “He’s a beauty.”

  She looked from Sloan to the puppy, who seemed so comfortable in Sloan’s arms. “You brought him for me?” He nodded. “But where will he sleep?”

  “That’s his house in the truck. He’ll take good care of you, if you take care of him. I promise. Feed him in front of his house, never inside your house. Take him for a walk mornings and evenings, and don’t let people pet him or play with him. He’s a guard dog.” He took her hands and let the puppy sniff them. “He’s getting heavy, but I think you can hold him while I put his house on your deck. When he’s full grown, it might be a good idea to put his house in the yard. Can you hold him?”

  Overwhelmed and, she realized, excited, she took the puppy and cradled him in her arms, stroking and hugging him. “He’s so cute and cuddly,” she said as she looked up to find Sloan staring at her, and nearly dropped the animal. Passion heated his dazzling gaze, and she stood immobile as tension danced between them like an unharnessed electric current, wild and dangerous.

  “You’re a born nurturer,” he said in a voice so soft that she strained to hear it. “And you’ll be a wonderful, loving mother.”

  “If I ever get the chance. I...uh...I know what it means to need love,” she said, then turned and walked away from him toward the back side of the house, holding the puppy, who made no effort to move out of her arms. The man was a living magnet.

  “He needs a name, a strong name,” Sloan said, carrying the doghouse. “He’s a purebred German shepherd, and his name should reflect his nobility.”

  She laughed. “A nobleman, eh? Then I guess I can’t name him Wimbledon. I’ll call him Caesar. What do you think?”

  “Sounds right. I’ll register it tomorrow, and I’ll bring you a copy of his papers. You sure you want to keep him? I know I took a chance, but if you like having him, that’s all I want. It will take a load from my mind.”

  “Were you worried about me? Caesar won’t be a guard dog till he’s grown, will he?”

  “Acquaint him with the premises, walk him around—” he handed her a leash that would hook to the dog’s collar “—so he’ll know his territory. In a couple of weeks, he’ll growl at any trespasser.”

  “I don’t want him to growl at you.”

  He put Caesar’s house on the deck, flush against the wall of Lynne’s back porch. “Not to worry. He’ll get used to me after a while.” He put the dog in his new house, got the bag of dog biscuits and the plate that he had taped to the top and handed them to her. “You feed him, and then get him some water for this bowl. Always feed him right here.”

  “Caesar,” she called to the dog, but getting no answer, she hunkered before the door and held a biscuit so that the dog could smell it. He poked his head out, looked first at Sloan, then at her before deciding to come out and eat.

  “Now he knows who feeds him,” Sloan said. “Dogs are like children, they love the person who nurtures them.”

  When the dog finished eating she gave him water, patted his head and hooked the leash to his collar. “Come, Caesar, we’re going for a walk.” She hadn’t fully appreciated the size of her property until she’d walked the length and breadth of it with Caesar. She walked back to the deck intending to put Caesar in his house and found Sloan working on it.

  “What’s that you’re putting on it?” she asked him.

  “I made a window on the side, but it’s glass, and he needs air, so I’m putting in this window screen. When he’s inside and you don’t want him to get out, slide that other screen across the door. He’ll be comfortable and happy.”

  She backed away and moved around him in order to see the other side of the doghouse. “You made this?”

  “One of my workers is a pretty good carpenter, and he set the frame up for me. I can’t lay out anything this complicated. All I had to do was saw the boards and nail them to the frame. We started working on it last week.”

  He straightened up. “Want to ride into San Antonio? I’ll stop past the service station, get my car and we can have what’s left of the afternoon. What do you say?”

  His tone and the smile upon his face beguiled her. I will not be putty in this man’s hands, she said to herself, but to him she said, “Give me a few minutes to change. I want to be home by eight-thirty so I can take Caesar for a walk and be in bed by ten.”

  “You’ll be back by then. I promised I’d dance to your rhythm, and I keep my word. Remember, though, that on Sundays we please each other.”

  “That’s what we’ll always do.” She looked at the doghouse. “Suppose he gets lonely while I’m gone?”

  “He’ll be that much happier to see you when you get back.”

  She went inside, showered, dabbed a bit of Miss Dior perfume in strategic places and slipped on a pale green, short-sleeve linen dress. “Ready when you are.”

  “You’re lovelier every time I see you.” He leaned down and kissed her cheek. “Good as you look, I sure hate to ask you to ride in this truck, but it’s all I have just now. When we get to the service station, I’ll make amends.”

  He drove along Route 35 with the windows down and the breeze dancing through her hair. She leaned back and perused the countryside that she was beginning to love. The Texans adored their bluebonnets, but she adored the yellow daisies and multicolored calla lilies that bloomed on the roadside. Although the sun shone brightly, sprinkles of rain, like hesitant teardrops, landed occasionally on the window, cooling the atmosphere. But suddenly, as if the heavens opened and poured out its sorrows of the ages, a torren
t of rain obscured their vision. Sloan quickly closed the windows,

  “I hope you didn’t get wet,” he said. “Maybe it’s a passing shower.” He pulled into the service station. “Wait here. I have an umbrella in my office.”

  Her hand on his arm detained him. “I don’t want to be dry and comfortable at your expense. Can’t we sit here for a while until the rain slacks?”

  He frowned deeply, and his gaze seemed to penetrate her, to search inside of her, but his otherwise casual demeanor belied his intenseness as he let his arm rest on the back of her seat. “For a minute there, I almost wished I was Caesar. You’re going to love him and take care of him, and he’s going to be one lucky bastard.”

  She wasn’t sure as to what her reaction to that statement should be, so she expressed her true feelings. “I would take good care of anything you gave me.”

  A grin spread over his face, and the light in his eyes sparkled and danced its mischievous dance. “Sweetheart, I am not going to touch that one, because I would definitely incriminate myself.”

  “Not more than you just did. It’s stopped raining.”

  “Right. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” He returned wearing a beige jacket and, with an umbrella hanging on his arm, opened her door and said, “I’ll help you out. This truck is high, and your skirt is narrow.” She swung her feet to the side and looked up at him. “I’ll use any excuse to get my hands on you,” he said, lifting her and carrying her to a black Lincoln Town Car.

  “I’m still able to walk, Sloan.”

  “I know, but I didn’t want you to get your shoes muddy.”

  “Muddy? We’re not on a farm, we’re standing on concrete.”

  He rubbed the back of his neck with his fingers and affected an air of innocence. “Well, I was honest. I told you I’d use any excuse to—”

  “Put me down. If you need an excuse, we’re both in trouble.”

  “What did you say?”

  She slid into the car and fastened her seat belt. “You heard me correctly.”